For the first time, the Foley Institute hosted a “stand-up economist” at its Coffee and Politics Series.

“This is a first for the Foley Institute that we have a comedian speaking,” said Cornell Clayton, director of the Foley Institute.

Yoram Bauman holds a doctorate degree in economics from the University of Washington, and he calls himself a stand-up economist. He spoke about the benefits of instating a carbon tax in Washington state. He said he usually speaks to more conservative audiences and mobilizes them with jokes.

“If you make people laugh for 45 minutes, you can kind of talk to them about whatever you want for five or 10 minutes and they’ll forgive you,” Bauman said.

His priority is using the tools of economic policy to affect climate change.

Bauman is part of a group attempting to put a carbon tax initiative on the November 2014 ballot in Washington state. His goal is to come up with a bipartisan, revenue-neutral policy that taxes CO2 emissions and in turn, reduces taxes on small businesses, low income programs, and sales tax.

“Let’s actually try to build a bipartisan consensus to try to do something about climate change that does something about tax reform at the same time,” he said.

Bauman’s idea for a carbon tax is based on a successful carbon tax program instituted in British Columbia in 2008. This program started a $10 per ton tax on CO2, increasing $5 a year until peaking this year at $30 a ton. This tax brings British Columbia about $5 billion a year, which is used to reduce taxes on low-income families, personal income, and business taxes, he said.

Since then, British Columbia’s economy has grown slightly faster relative to the rest of Canada – some studies indicate that the carbon tax is actually helping the economy, Bauman said. British Columbia motor gasoline sales have dropped dramatically, he said.

“The way to get less pollution is to make polluting expensive,” Bauman said.

He wants to institute a similar tax in Washington, taxing carbon $25 per ton of CO2. This will generate about $1.7 billion a year, Bauman said. In what he calls a ‘tax swap,’ he plans to use the money to alleviate other taxes.

He proposes reducing the state sales’ tax by a full percentage point.

“This is hundreds of dollars a year for an average household in Washington state in savings,” he said.

He would also use the money to fund an anti-poverty and negative income tax policy called Working Families Sales Tax Rebate, a program which has been passed but never funded in Washington. His group also wants to eliminate business taxes for manufacturers, because they are the hardest hit by the carbon tax.

Bauman said his organization could not find an appropriate tax to offset for the agricultural community, because that community didn’t pay many taxes. So in order to have a fair plan, they decided to exempt farmers and agricultural diesel use from the carbon tax.

The next step is to gather 300,000 signatures between January and June of next year and put the initiative on the ballot in November.

Kris Carlson, senior history major, said he thinks the policy sounds like a good one, but other states with higher emissions need it more than Washington does.

“Maybe if Washington starts it, then other states will follow suit,” Carlson said.

Bauman said the other tax benefits of having a carbon tax would outweigh the cost itself.

“There is a side benefit to these policies, apart from the main benefit of actually saving the world,” he said.